We at Lady Scribes are very excited today! We have Laurie Kahn, from The Popular Romance Project and the upcoming documentary Love Between the Covers, here as our guest...
Laurie Kahn is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who
dreamt up (and is Executive Producer of) the Popular Romance Project. Have you
all heard about it? She is currently shooting the feature length documentary
film that will be called Love Between the
Covers – it’s about the global community of women who create, consume, and
love romance novels. The project is in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign
right now. If you go to LoveBetweentheCovers.com
you can see a short, fun video about the film.
She needs our help! So we asked
her all about the project and what we can do to help out….
What kinds of films
do you like to make?
I’m especially interested in telling the stories of extraordinary
unsung women and the communities they build. I love making films about
seemingly small stories that reveal the complexities (often epic in scope) that
are left out of conventional narratives -- stories that might seem insignificant
to others, but not to me.
My first independent film, A
Midwife’s Tale, was about the life and world of an 18th century midwife who
moved to Maine during the American Revolution.
Martha Ballard saw everything that happened in the small town of
Hallowell, and she kept a daily diary for 27 years! She was a healer, midwife,
mortician, and pharmacist for her neighbors – and seeing early American history
through her eyes, you can see events and people who are invisible in the
conventional historical records.
I also made a film about the forgotten but remarkable marketing
genius Brownie Wise and her Tupperware Ladies, who built the Tupperware empire
back in the 1950s. I interviewed more than 300 of the early Tupperware Ladies
for that film, and found old footage that had never been seen before in
archives, attics, and basements all over the country. (I love doing
research. For me, it’s like detective
work!) I uncovered an amazing story and, believe it or not, the theatrical rights
to my film have now been acquired to make a Broadway musical.
How did you decide to
start the Popular Romance Project?
That’s a great question! The communities women build
interest me, so how could I not be interested in the huge global community of
women who write, edit, publish and read romance novels? Romance fiction is a financial and cultural
powerhouse fueled by women. Yet there’s
never been a film that looks carefully at this industry, and the remarkable,
technically savvy, passionate community built around it.
What has been the
most unexpected thing you’ve discovered?
I did not expect to find that the women in this community span all
socio-economic groups, ethnic backgrounds, and romantic preferences (ranging
from chaste evangelical romance to erotic gay romance and BDSM). I also did not
expect to find that the romance community has been on the crest of the tech
wave, pushing the boundaries of digital publishing and social networking. (Romance
authors are using 21st century innovations to re-shape archetypal stories that
can be traced back hundreds, even thousands of years!)
Tell me about your
Kickstarter campaign.
Kickstarter is the largest platform for funding creative
projects in the world. Several weeks ago, I launched a Kickstarter campaign. When you do this, you choose a goal and a
deadline. We have a $50,000 goal and a deadline of August 26. That
means we have to raise $50,000
in pledges by Sunday the 26th or
we receive NONE of the money that has been pledged! If we raise more
than $50,000 by that deadline, we will be allowed to keep EVERYTHING
that has been pledged. So the stakes are high. And it's crucial to mobilize people who
want this project to happen in the next few weeks!
Can
people see some of the film you are shooting?
Definitely! If you
go to LoveBetweentheCovers.com, you can see a fun, five-minute video
preview of the film. I showed a version
of this at the Romance Writers of America conference in Anaheim, and I can’t
tell you how many people came up to me in the halls to cheer me on and tell me
how much they liked it!
 |
In addition, if you got to our website, PopularRomanceProject.org, you can also see lots of excerpts from the
interviews I’ve been shooting (with Jayne Ann Krentz, Beverly Jenkins, Suzanne
Brockmann, Eloisa James, Jodi Thomas and dozens of others), behind the scenes
videos, and short, lively essays about popular romance from a dazzling array of
perspectives.
Where
will the film be seen when you’ve finished making it?
When the film is finished, it will be broadcast worldwide, seen at film
festivals, and used in high school and university classrooms, like my other films.
If
you pledge, to you get anything in return?
For a pledge of $35, you can pre-buy a copy of the film, and also get a
credit at the SUPPORTER page of the Popular Romance Project website and a
fabulous magnetic bumper sticker (everyone who give $25 or more will get a fabulous
magnetic bumper sticker).
But there’s a wide range of donor gifts, for
example: a lovely cloissone pin, first chapter critiques by published authors,
a thank-you in the film credits, a copy of the limited edition film poster,
tickets to the film premiere, and a day in the editing room. EVERY GIFT
MATTERS! Project supporters can give as little as $1, or as much as $5,000 (for
$5,000, I will fly to your hometown in the continental US before the film is
broadcast for an intimate private film premiere you’re your friends/family/readers.
We can hang out and I’ll answer any and all questions!).
Is this money
startup money or completion funding?
Thanks to a recent production grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities, we now have almost 75% of the total budget ($851,000) that we need
to complete the film and launch it in the world. We have enough funding to
shoot the film and begin editing, but we still need the funds to complete
editing, do the pickup shoots, hire a composer,
complete the post production sound editing and sound mix, hire an animator, and
help keep PopularRomanceProject.org alive and growing. The details of what $50,000 in additional
funding would pay for can be found at the Kickstarter page, LoveBetweentheCovers.com.
Any
final words?
I am really really grateful for all the support I’ve received from the
romance community. This is your film as
much as it is my film. I have high
standards, and I intend to make a film you will all be proud of.
Wow!
Let me tell you, at Lady Scribes we could not be more excited or proud
to be part of promoting this project. I (Olivia) think that getting the
word out about what we write and who we are, banishing those
misconceptions about Romance writers, is so important. It's true:
Romance powers the publishing industry, so why aren't we taken more
seriously? Well, I'm not going to rant (be grateful, I can hella rant
with the best of 'em), but I am going to say that we wish you the very
best, Laurie and hope this documentary gets made! I can't wait to see
it! :)
NOW...
we wanted to add a little incentive to donate to The Popular Romance
Project (other than getting an awesome movie made!) and so the Lady
Scribes are offering a prize pack of Lady Scribes novels if you donate!
Please feel free to comment even if you do not donate, because we always
love hearing from everyone, BUT if you do donate for Love Between the Covers, email me (Olivia Kelly) at olivia.kelly1800@gmail.com and you will be entered in the drawing for the prize pack! ANY donation is welcome.
(I ask you email me privately so that who donates and who doesn't remains a private matter. Thank you, my dears!) <3
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